this is it (welcome to the new year)
by doctorkaitlyn
Summary: It's New Year's Eve, and Glenn and Daryl decide to ring in the holiday with their friends (and get a little sappy / drunk in the process). originally posted on Archive of Our Own, cross-posted here by request.


It's still five hours before midnight, but Glenn is pretty sure that Maggie is well on her way to being drunk.

"Glenn! You made it!" she shouts from the front door of her house. There's a glass of what's probably whiskey in one hand and she waves with the other, wrist loose in a way that practically screams tipsiness. "Did Daryl come?"

"Yeah, I'm here," Daryl says, sliding from the passenger seat. Somehow, despite the fact that they're parked out on the street (the driveway is already filled to bursting), Maggie still manages to hear him.

(Glenn can't say he's surprised. Her hearing is astounding at the best of times and somehow, it gets even better when she's drunk. If superpowers were real, Maggie would probably have them.)

"Don't act like you're not excited!" she yells. "Now get in here!" With that, she turns and slams the door, making the crooked wreath hanging on it bounce.

"You know, you didn't have to come," Glenn says, reaching into the backseat and grabbing the small box that contains the Christmas presents for their friends; they always exchange gifts on New Year's, since everyone is usually too busy on the 25th to meet up. After only a second, he realizes that Daryl might take that the wrong way and he clears his throat as he straightens back up. "I mean, if you were too tired from work or-"

"Glenn, I wanted to come," Daryl says. "If I didn't wanna, you couldn't have dragged me." The corner of his mouth twitches up into a small smile and just like that, relief rushes through Glenn's body.

"Alright," he sighs, kicking the car door closed. "But one of us should stay sober, if we want to go home tonight."

"No guarantees," Daryl says, taking the box from Glenn and striding up the driveway, boots leaving indents in the inch or so of snow that has managed to stay clinging to the ground for the last few weeks. Glenn follows in his tracks; he's wearing an old pair of sneakers and even with following in Daryl's footsteps, by the time they make it to the front door, his socks feel a little damp.

As soon as they step inside, it feels like they've slammed into a wall of heat. Glenn starts tearing at his layers, depositing his sweater and beanie on top of a loose pile of clothes sitting inside the hall closet. Once they've both shed their shoes, they slide into the living room, which is packed full of people, standing room only. Glenn immediately finds a spot tucked into the corner by the artificial Christmas tree, which has stacks of cheerfully wrapped gifts shoved underneath it. He's just barely gotten himself situated against the wall when he finds himself pulled sideways into a tight hug.

"I'm so happy you two could make it," Sasha, Maggie's wife, says as she pulls away. Her hair is hanging in thick curls around her face and her skin looks like it's glowing. Glenn is pretty sure the glow has less to do with the heat of the room and more to do with the beach ball sized bump stretching the front of Sasha's sweater.

"How's she doing in there?" Daryl asks, making his way from the other side of the Christmas tree with two glasses of whiskey. When Glenn looks from the whiskey back to Daryl and raises an eyebrow, Daryl shrugs and says, "Maggie insisted."

"It feels like she's trying to kick her way out most days," Sasha says, placing one hand on her stomach. "Maggie's carrying the next one."

"There ain't going to _be_ a next one," Maggie retorts, appearing at Sasha's shoulder. "Not anytime soon, at least." When she leans in to kiss Sasha's cheek, she's positively beaming. Glenn barely has enough time to take a sip of his drink before Maggie grabs him by the elbow and tugs him away.

"C'mon, Michonne and Lori want to talk to you," she says, easily weaving her way through the people crowding the living room. "I think they're going to try and talk you into babysitting the kids some night."

"Well, they won't have to try that hard," Glenn replies. He glances back over his shoulder and waves to Daryl, who is still over by the tree. Daryl smirks slightly and just barely lifts his hand in return before he turns back to Sasha.

Sure enough, that's what Michonne and Lori want to ask him. Glenn immediately accepts; Carl and Judith are both well behaved and he knows how hard it can be for Michonne, Lori and Rick to find a night that will work for all three of them to spend some alone time. When the conversation turns to anything Sasha and Maggie might need for the upcoming birth, Glenn slips away. He barely makes it out of the room before he runs into Rick, who is talking to Sasha's brother Tyreese and his wife Karen.

"Want another drink?" Rick asks, holding up a flask. Glenn shrugs and holds out his empty whiskey glass. One more drink won't make him too tipsy and besides, he's sure that Maggie and Sasha have already planned for some of them to stay the night if necessary.

One more drink ends up turning into two. And then three. By the time he stumbles back into the living room so that they can all watch the ball drop, he's lost count and he knows even without looking in a mirror that his face is flushed red with blood.

Daryl seems to be in the same boat. He's sitting on one of the sofas, loosely clutching a half-full glass in his fingers and when he looks over at Glenn, he visibly perks up.

"Glenn!" he hollers, jumping to his feet and wobbling slightly, whiskey coming dangerously close to sloshing out of the glass. "C'mere!"

"Hey!" Glenn says louder than he intends, carefully stepping around both Aaron and Eric, who are sitting on the floor. As soon as he crosses the room, Daryl wraps his arm around Glenn's waist and falls back onto the couch. Some of his drink slops onto Glenn's thigh and he groans, sponging at the fabric with the sleeve of his shirt.

"My jeans," he sighs, gesturing at the wet spot and trying to get himself comfortable on Daryl's lap without kicking Michonne, who is sitting on the other side.

"I'll buy you new ones," Daryl mutters, craning forward and putting his drink down on the coffee table. He settles back and pulls Glenn flush against him, face pressed against Glenn's shoulder. Glenn can feel his face getting warmer and warmer and this time, it has nothing to do with how much he's drank or the temperature of the room.

"Daryl, what are you doing?" he asks, twisting to face Daryl more. "You're drunk."

" _You're_ drunk," Daryl retorts and, well, he isn't wrong, Glenn has to admit. He squeezes Glenn even tighter and when he next speaks, his words are muffled against Glenn's shoulder.

"I can let you go, if you want."

"It's fine," Glenn says with a shrug, trying to be casual even though it feels like every person in the room is looking at him.

(A quick glance around is enough to confirm that they're not; everyone else is either tangled up in each other or staring at the television, watching the timer in the corner of the screen count down to zero.)

Truth be told, he kind of loves the open affection. Even after five years together, Daryl is usually so restrained around others, even when it's just their friends. Glenn knows he has his reasons and really, he's fine with it; he knows Daryl loves him, he doesn't need constant reassurance. But still, he's not going to deny that it feels pretty fucking great to have Daryl's arms wrapped around him, to feel his large, warm hands curved around his waist.

"Maggie said we can sleep on the pull-out couch in the spare room. Or the floor," Daryl says, sneaking his thumb underneath the hem of Glenn's shirt. "I ain't fit to drive."

"Me neither," Glenn replies, looping his arms around Daryl's neck, finally finding a spot that doesn't make Daryl's knees dig into the back of his thighs. "The couch will work, I think." Really, he's not looking forward to it; the couch is a relic from the seventies with a sagging mattress, squeaky springs and a talent for leaving a godawful kink in his neck.

Still, if he uses Daryl's chest as a pillow, maybe he'll wake up without too many aches and pains.

The room gets louder and when Glenn glances over at the television, the clock in the corner of the screen reads fifteen seconds left. The camera flashes over Times Square, showing the thousands of people sandwiched together under the dark, snowflake dripping sky, and while Glenn is sure it's an experience like no other, he can't help but be glad that he's inside, surrounded by his friends and the man he cares for.

"I love you Daryl," he murmurs, twisting to press his lips against Daryl's temple.

"Love you too," Daryl replies before leaning up and plastering a loud, firm kiss against Glenn's cheek. Glenn's eyes automatically close and his face flushes even warmer as Daryl presses more kisses against his cheek and his jaw.

When the ball finally drops and both the television and the living room erupt with cheering and the clinking of glasses, Glenn's eyes are still closed and he's really thinking about dragging Daryl back out to their car, just so they can make good use of the backseat.

&.

In the end, they don't make it any further than the couch in the spare bedroom.

Glenn knows that it's uncomfortable, but he's enveloped in such a warm haze of intoxication that it feels like he's laying on a cloud. The light in the room is off, but the glow from the hallway is creeping underneath the door. Occasionally, someone passes by and Glenn listens to their footsteps and soft murmurs until they fade away. Eventually, someone turns off the light and after that, the only thing Glenn can hear is Daryl breathing beside him, some of his exhales verging dangerously close to being snores. Tyreese and Karen are asleep in the bed on the other side of the room, but they haven't stirred for ages.

Eventually, after wriggling around a few times and filling the room with the sound of squeaking springs, Glenn manages to find the perfect position, head cushioned on Daryl's bicep, arm flung loosely over Daryl's trim waist.

After that, there's no point in trying to stay awake. The battle is lost and frankly, he doesn't mind.

&.

When Glenn finally wakes up, he immediately curses the existence of alcohol.

He's definitely hung over. The light coming through the sheer curtains seems to stab into his eyes, even after he closes them again. It feels like his head has been filled with heavy, shifting rocks and when he yawns, he realizes that the inside of his mouth is dry as a bone.

At least his stomach isn't churning. That's one good thing.

Slowly, he sits up. Tyreese and Karen are gone and the spare bed has been made tight enough to bounce a quarter off of. Daryl is still asleep; his head is buried underneath one of the pillows and when Glenn gently nudges him, he makes a weird, grunting sound but otherwise doesn't move. Glenn decides to leave him be and heads off to the bathroom; Maggie has an entire drawer of spare toothbrushes and in addition to being dry as a desert, Glenn's mouth tastes like something died in it.

After he brushes his teeth and splashes his face with some cold water, he decides to follow the smell of bacon to the kitchen. As he cuts through the living room, he spies his phone sitting on the coffee table, notification light blinking blue. He grabs it as he walks by and when he turns on the screen, he has to blink a few times to make sure he's reading it right.

 _Sasha Williams, Lori Grimes, Beth Greene and fifteen others like your profile picture._

Glenn blinks a few more times. As far as he knows, the last time he changed his profile picture was in October, when him and Daryl had gone to a costume party dressed (rather convincingly) as zombies. He clicks on the notification and when the new picture pops up on screen, he doesn't know whether to groan or laugh.

At some point last night, someone (he suspects Maggie) had used his phone to take a picture of Daryl kissing him on the cheek. Glenn's eyes are squeezed shut and Daryl's fingers are cradling his jaw, pressing into the flesh underneath his cheekbone. It's not exactly a flattering picture; it's pretty clear from the flush of his skin that he's drunk and, not for the first time, he's glad that he doesn't have any of his bosses on Facebook.

Still, he can't help but grin a little.

Besides, it serves him right for not putting a password on his phone.

Maggie and Sasha are sitting at the kitchen table when he enters, picking food off each other's plates. Maggie has two mugs of coffee sitting in front of her and when he pulls out a chair, she pushes one across the table towards him.

"I was starting to wonder if you were ever gonna wake up," she says, taking a sip of her own coffee.

"You're the best," Glenn mumbles, immediately taking a gulp. When he sits it back on the table, he leans forward and raises his phone, which is still displaying the picture.

"Was that you?" he asks.

"Yup," Maggie says with a shrug. "You two are cute. But you can delete it, if you want, of course."

"Delete what?" The voice, little more than a rasp, comes from the doorway as Daryl stumbles in, pushing his hair away from his eyes.

"Maggie took a picture of us," Glenn replies, handing Daryl his phone. Daryl shoves his hair away again, stares at the picture for a few moments and mutters _huh_ before passing the phone back.

"Cute," he says, grabbing a plate off the counter and grabbing some bacon from the pan on the stove. "We should print that. Put it on the wall with the others."

When they get home, Glenn does just that. The finished result is a little grainy (he's had his printer since college and it wheezes whenever it spits out a page), but once the ink has dried, Daryl grabs it, having spent the last ten minutes rummaging through one of their boxes for an empty picture frame.

"Look at that," he says once he's finished mounting the picture on the wall. "Looks great." The rest of the pictures on the wall in their bedroom are just as ridiculous; the costume party picture is there, as well as one of them at Maggie and Sasha's wedding, with Glenn wearing a denim suit jacket because Maggie had dared him to.

"One of these days, we should probably take a serious picture," Glenn sighs, straightening the newest frame slightly. "Even if just to send to my mom."

"Maybe," Daryl shrugs. "I still like these ones though."

"Yeah," Glenn murmurs, squeezing Daryl's hand tightly and turning back to look at all the photos and memories. "Me too."


End file.
